Afghan women in front of a children’s playground in Kabul in November 2022. EBRAHIM NOROOZI / AP
Taliban authorities announced Sunday, November 13, that Afghan women would be banned from entering gymnasiums and public baths, shortly after being barred from parks and gardens in the capital.
“Gyms are closed to women because their trainers were men and some [des salles] were mixed,” said Ministry of Vice Prevention and Virtue Promotion spokesman Mohammad Akif Sadeq Muhajir.
He added that the “hamams,” public baths that traditionally separate men and women, are also banned for the latter. “Right now every house has a bathroom, so it’s not a problem for women” to wash, he said.
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A video clip circulating on social media, which could not be immediately verified, shows a group of women with their backs to the camera lamenting the ban on gyms. “It’s a women-only gym; Teachers and trainers are all women,” complains one of them. “You can’t ban us from everything,” adds the young woman, her voice breaking with emotion.
Further restrictions on women’s rights and freedoms
Despite their promise to be more flexible when they return to power in August 2021, the Taliban have largely returned to the ultra-rigorous interpretation of Islam that marked their first seizure of power (1996-2001) and severely restricted rights and freedoms Women. Secondary schools for girls were closed and they were ordered to wear the full veil.
Barred from most public jobs, women are also prevented from traveling alone outside of their city. Earlier this week, the Taliban also announced that they would no longer be allowed to visit Kabul’s parks and gardens. Activists say the increasing restrictions on women are aimed at preventing them from gathering to organize resistance against the Taliban regime.
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Small groups of women have nonetheless organized several blitz demonstrations in Kabul and other major cities, at the risk of angering Taliban leaders. These gatherings are usually brutally broken up and female participants arrested. Earlier this month, the United Nations expressed “concern” after the Taliban disrupted a press conference organized by a women’s organization in the capital. The participants were strip searched and the organizer of the event and several others were arrested.